My California trip, EV observations from a Philly guy

[gatedad11]

Just got back from a week in Southern California, most of that time spent in San Diego. I would like to compare my observations of the various EV’s I saw versus what is seen out here in the East Coast.
• So many Tesla’s that I lost count. On almost every trip on an interstate or “main road” I would see a Tesla.
• Plenty of Chevy Volts. It seemed that there were _many_ more than I recall from even 6 months ago. I did hear radio ads specific to $199 Volt lease deals, so the car was being pushed. The ads appear to be working.
• Also many Nissan LEAFs, which was not surprising. I’d say it was nearly a tossup between Volts and LEAFs. TV ads were running for the LEAF, same ones I have been seeing on our local TV here. But they seemed to be running more often.
• Several Ford C-Max Energies seen. Probably, I saw a few every day. I think I have seen 3 here in the Philadelphia area over the last year in total.
• Saw 3 Fiat 500EV’s, which was kind of fun. None of them live in PA, though.
• Saw my first (and only) I-Miev in San Diego, parked at a 7/11. I tried to ID the owner, until my son gave me the evil eye and I gave up on that. I would have enjoyed speaking to a fellow I-Miev owner.
• After I figured that I would not see one (it was our last day in San Diego) I saw a BMW I3 drive by on the I-8. Nice looking color, grey black and metallic blue, if I recall. Looked pretty nice to me, so I don’t know what all the negative fuss is about the car’s looks. Also, didn’t seem as small as I expected it to be, after reading many reviews of the car.
• Saw, almost certainly, a KIA SOUL EV. It was driving in the HOV lane with only 1 driver, in the opposite direction. This was a blue car with white roof, and I “think”that only the EV version has this color scheme. Too bad I only saw it in passing as I would have liked to see it up close.
• Didn’t see a Toyota Rav4 EV, or a Ford Focus Electric.
• Naturally, quite a bit better EVSE infrastructure. Lots of “EV Charging Station” signs around. Also, plenty of those spaces were ICE’d!
• Overall, I was impressed by the EV saturation. Hope that we get the same results(in time)out here.

Lou

 

[fjpod]

Sounds like you saw no iMievs.

 

[gatedad11]

Actually, I saw ONE, at a 7/11. Also, forgot to mention the Smart EV's and the Cars 2 Go EV's..quite a few of them around.

Lou

 

[PV1]

Cool!

Out in my neck of the woods, here's a side-by-side of my i-MiEV with a LEAF, Volt, and an i3.

http://api.plugshare.com/view/location/13430

I see most Ford Energi's south of Morgantown, WV. Very few where I'm at.

 

[gatedad11]

PV:

Looks like you scared the other EV's away! The photos show a few, then none but yours.

How do you like the QC option? My I-MiEV did not come with the QC, now I wish that it had it. Are there any/many QC stations in your range?

Lou

 

[PV1]

Actually, the first picture is the newest, then get older towards the right. I bet the car got some looks, though. You'll notice one of the rare Saturn-type at the charging station in the second picture from the right. :lol: The spaces are painted green now, and I haven't noticed any stations being ICEd lately.

There are two quick chargers that I can get to fairly easily. Though I was adamant on getting the QC port (first dealer tried to convince me there wouldn't be any chargers around, so it wouldn't be worth getting), I haven't had the chance to use it yet. I may be doing a road trip up north here soon. 380 miles over 3 days with two quick chargers. After I get the car serviced this weekend (including alignment and new rear tires [and possibly new fronts if the warranty claim holds, more on that in the wheels thread later]), I might take a trip to test out the QC, though the Eaton unit in Cranberry is out of service, possibly to get the new connector, like the Sheetz units.

 

[danpatgal]

Looked pretty nice to me, so I don’t know what all the negative fuss is about the car’s looks. Also, didn’t seem as small as I expected it to be, after reading many reviews of the car.

Us iMiev drivers probably get more flack for the looks and size of our car than any others ... so I had to chuckle reading your positive view of the i3 (I also think it looks fine). But, I'm sure the guy who drives the BMW M3 here at my work wouldn't be caught dead in an i3 (I get to park next to him in my Lectric Leopard sometimes - I'm sure it makes him cringe ).

Next week we're taking the iMiev up 322 from Ephrata to Harrisburg and State College and beyond using the QC chargers Sheetz recently installed. I tried the one in Harrisburg successfully and hope the one in State College is functioning fine. The full round trip will be just over 400 miles. I'm now, finally, glad we got the QC option on the iMiev. My wife will be heading down to Exton, PA on Thursday and intends to use the Nissan QC to make the trip back.

 

[gatedad11]

DPG: What kind of range boost have you seen using the QC?

Lou

 

[danpatgal]

DPG: What kind of range boost have you seen using the QC?

I went from 6 bars to 14 bars in 21 minutes. I've heard that if I had been at 1 bar it would take roughly the same amount of time to get to 14 bars (because the batteries suck up charge so much faster when they are below 50% SOC). I'll get to test that out next weekend in State College when we drive up there with some pretty long inter-charger distances.

Having charged at L1 and L2 "on the road" before, going up to QC is so much better. It's really only a little bit slower than gassing up - albeit you're getting only 50 miles of range in that time. QC enables us to use the iMiev more often and more comfortably. A 6.6kw charger and longer ranges would help too, but QC stations are now starting to pop up in more places, so it's really exciting and encouraging for EV drivers.

 

[HParkEV]

...
but QC stations are now starting to pop up in more places, so it's really exciting and encouraging for EV drivers.

You guys south of the border are so lucky! Up here in 'progressive' Canada (southern Ontario), since I bought my i-MiEV we have not had a single QC station installed, and the most convenient public L2 station for me has disappeared.
The only two QC stations available are right next to each other at the Canadian headquarters of Nissan and Mitsubishi. I know the one at Mitsubishi is closed on weekends, which is the only time for me when I could potentially use it...

 

[fjpod]

Quick chargers??? Here in NYC I would be thrilled to find even an L1 or 2 anywhere..., that is not part of a parking garage. There are none in malls, theaters, sports arenas, workplaces, etc. What's a public charger?

 

[HParkEV]

Quick chargers??? Here in NYC I would be thrilled to find even an L1 or 2 anywhere..., that is not part of a parking garage. There are none in malls, theaters, sports arenas, workplaces, etc. What's a public charger?

Just looking at plugshare.com shows lots of QC's in NY as well as PA. Most are reasonably spaced apart so that they are within i-MiEV range of each other.
By public L2, I mean ones that anyone can pull up to, and either pay to charge or get a free charge.
Up here at Richmond Hill town hall, there were two L2 Eaton EVSE's installed as part of the 'green image' that the town wanted to project. They were free to use, but had a space for a credit card slot that was blanked out, that I always assumed would be used in the future to charge people for the electricity. There were there for a couple of years, used very infrequently. As soon as they started to become used more, say about 50% or so usage rate during business hours earlier this year, they padlocked both of them. I have inquired about it to the town hall, after weeks of stalling they responded that 'they were never intended for public use'. Since they padlocked them, I have never seen them used at all, so I'm not sure why they were installed in the first place.
Effectively, they have made this formerly public charging station (built with taxpayer's money) a private one, that can only be used by whomever has the key to the padlock. That person seems not to have access to an EV, because the station is never used.

 

[JoeS]

Unlike the states of Washington and Oregon, California is still in the dark ages when it comes to a charging infrastructure along the state's main North-South travel routes, as well as going East out of the state. Tesla is the only one that's done it. Even if I had CHAdeMO, the only way I could get from the San Francisco Bay Area up to Oregon is using campgrounds with RV 240v outlets. OTOH, there are now at least 50 CHAdeMO stations within a radius of 50 miles from my house.

 

[danpatgal]

I used the Harrisburg QC again yesterday. Went from 5 bars to 14 in 20 minutes. I wanted a little more range, so I restarted the charge to see how much more I could get in another 10 minutes (while I was finishing my lunch). In another 10 minutes I got another bar, over 90% SOC (the QC said another 1.1kwh was added). So, that was really encouraging.

My wife is using the QC in Exton, PA today. I'm now beginning to wonder if I should be worried about long term capacity if I use the QC on a more regular basis. Of course, that's better than the problem of others who have little to no available QCs or other public charging to use.

 

[MLucas]

My wife is using the QC in Exton, PA today. I'm now beginning to wonder if I should be worried about long term capacity if I use the QC on a more regular basis. Of course, that's better than the problem of others who have little to no available QCs or other public charging to use.

You are in a very fortunate area to have so many QCs around. I did a search yesterday on PlugShare for these chargers and there are NONE in the Niagara area where I live. The closest is near Toronto. My QC port is as pure as the driven snow. Looking at the PlugShare map it looks like the east and west coast has an orange rash with a splotch in Pennsylvania.

 

[PV1]

Looking at the PlugShare map it looks like the east and west coast has an orange rash with a splotch in Pennsylvania.

The US still has nothing on Japan. :lol:

 

[saise1929]

Find the last holdout of genuine experience. Like our glorious mountains and transcending trees that characterize us, we stand gladly. And keeping in mind that we talk our psyche, we do everything from the heart. Absolute legit, rough and unadulterated, Discover Siskiyou Tourism is the place California's genuine north lives and untamed experience runs free.

 

[rmay635703]

“You'll notice one of the rare Saturn-type at the charging “

I don’t see any pics but also what is a Saturn type?

 

[JoeS]

Find the last holdout of genuine experience. Like our glorious mountains and transcending trees that characterize us, we stand gladly. And keeping in mind that we talk our psyche, we do everything from the heart. Absolute legit, rough and unadulterated, Discover Siskiyou Tourism is the place California's genuine north lives and untamed experience runs free.

I smiled when I read this, figuring it was written by a holdout from the 60's and which confirms the suspicions of much of the country about Californians. Perhaps written by the i-MiEV owner in the City of Mount Shasta that I had seen a couple of years ago? This post had been flagged, but since no direct advertising links are embedded, and the Siskiyou's are indeed beautiful, I elected to leave it be...

To bring this back a little onto topic, the Siskiyou's have been an EV challenge for years, but just recently a few DCFCs have sprung up which allowed my brother-in-law to drive his Bolt down to the Bay Area from Oregon.
Yak's Restaurant in Dunsmuir
https://www.plugshare.com/location/81745
just updated their DCQC to include CHAdeMO which means one can make it down to Redding in an i-MiEV (but probably not the other way around because of the altitude change), and heading south from Redding on Interstate 5 is a vast CHAdeMO wasteland.

Tesla opened up 20 more charging stations in Mount Shasta to supplement the four that have been there for a few years -
https://www.plugshare.com/location/139992
https://www.plugshare.com/location/20388
and ChargePoint recently put in a 50kW CHAdeMO/CCS and Level 2 setup a stone's throw from the new Superchargers,
https://www.plugshare.com/location/164743
with more J1772s available down the road at the medical center.
Snow-covered Mount Shasta provides a beautiful backdrop and this is my favorite stop during the very many trips to Medford we've taken in the Tesla. I'll be going through there in a couple of days.

Although massively developed in metropolitan areas, the EV DCFC infrastructure is still wanting in many areas of California, but that is now rapidly changing although the spacing is such that our i-MiEVs would still have a hard time doing it quickly, as seen when selecting CHAdeMO on PlugShare.